Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:16 pm on 22 October 2019.
I want to say a few words about the issue of consent. The withdrawal agreement Bill has a number of failings that have been laid out this afternoon, but principal amongst these failings is the way in which Boris Johnson's Government is trying to force it through in this ridiculous timetable in Westminster, without giving Westminster or the devolved administrations adequate time to scrutinise it properly. Now this Bill, if it were passed, would fail to give this place the time to scrutinise future free trade agreements, and it would also not offer the people the chance to have a final say through a second referendum. Now, I know that Members throughout the Chamber have said a number of times in this debate, and a number of times in other debates, that the people have already had a chance to vote. Well, yes, they did vote; they voted when they were told that we'd have the easiest deal in history, and that we would have £350 million extra every week for the NHS—lies that have been exposed in the three years since. Now, consent has to be informed; it has to be sought again when things change. When the circumstances change, you cannot presume that consent has remained the same. That seems to me to be a fundamental point. I'll take the intervention.